Pandion Therapeutics is developing targeted therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The company announced the closing of its $58 million Series A round of financing, co-led by Polaris Partners, the founding investor that provided the initial seed funding, Versant Ventures and Roche Venture Fund. SR One and BioInnovation Capital also participated in the round.
The company, based in North Cambridge, Massachusetts, also announced key leadership appointments including CEO Anthony J. Coyle, PhD, and Chief Scientific Officer Jo Viney, PhD. Dr. Coyle previously was a senior vice president and founding Chief Scientific Officer of the Centers for Therapeutic Innovation at Pfizer and vice president and global head of inflammation biologics at MedImmune. Dr. Viney previously was senior vice president of drug discovery and VP of immunology research at Biogen and formerly of Amgen. The two executives have advanced a combined 22 drugs into the clinic, with multiple products on the market and in late-stage clinical trials.
Pandion is positioned to shift the paradigm for treating inflammatory and autoimmune diseases as well as transplant recipients by developing therapeutic antibodies that act at the local site of disease, offering the potential for significantly improved therapeutic options beyond systemic immunosuppressive treatments. We are delighted to have Tony Coyle and Jo Viney join Pandion along with a top-tier investor syndicate to help realize the full potential of our bispecific antibody platform to create value for patients and investors.
– Alan Crane, Entrepreneur Partner at Polaris Partners and Chairman of the Board of Pandion Therapeutics.
Pandion has developed a proprietary therapeutic platform based on bispecific antibodies with targeting fragments that bind to two specific tissues at the local site of inflammatory disease, coupled with effector molecules that modulate immune activity in order to restore immune homeostasis. The unique localized immunomodulation of Pandion’s bispecific antibodies is designed to provide a durable, tissue-specific effect at the site of disease, while avoiding the systemic immunosuppression of current treatments for autoimmune diseases and transplantation. This novel approach has the potential to significantly improve efficacy compared to current therapeutics.
In developing its proprietary platform, Pandion has translated insights from recent advances in the field of immune system regulation, including immuno-oncology discoveries about pathways by which tumors avoid immune recognition and induce long-term immune tolerance. The company has filed multiple patents covering its technology platform and applications. Pandion’s initial areas of drug development include inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune liver disease, kidney diseases, type 1 diabetes, and autoimmune skin conditions.
Recent advances in the field of immunology and immuno-oncology, particularly related to how tumors disarm the immune system locally, have opened up dramatic new insights for regulating immune function in a more precise and localized way to act directly at the site of disease. At Pandion, we are translating these new understandings of the immune system to develop therapeutic antibodies that can set a new standard for treating a variety of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases to meaningfully impact the lives of many patients.
– CEO Anthony J. Coyle
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